LaVar Hosting Jeopardy July 26-30 Stan Account 👁

I try to touch on that in the article. Three basic responses: 1) On abortion/religious freedom, if Doug Jones took up my recommendations he'd still be much more in alignment with progressive stances on those issues than Moore

2) He would still support the rest of the prog agenda (insomuch as he does now) 3) There's an argument to be made that taking a more "reasonable" (and I know that is contested) approach is more effective for advancing those interests

I'm sure that's not terribly satisfying, though. "I'm better than the other guy" type rhetoric is hard to swallow. Might work for Alabama/Jones, where ppl are used to compromising re: abortion, but what about NY progressives and Tom Perez?

"We have to move away from your values to win"? Is that the bottom line we have to tell people?

Isn't that the basic demand of pluralism/democracy? I mean, I've made this argument to evangelicals elsewhere, but I can add a fourth argument here 4) this is what it means to live together with people who disagree rather than simply wish them away

Hm. Maybe that's true. Doesn't exactly get the people fired up, but perhaps true. I think... people need assurances you won't move *backwards* on their issues, a la 1994 Crime Bill, "superpredators," et al.

"We won't move as fast as you want but we'll keep moving"---even when people are suffering and dying while you move slow---is still a better pitch than "Idk we might just do what your ideological opponents want bc we want their votes, and like forget y'all."

Yeah, neither are the case I'd make. I do think i cover this territory in my pieces in The Atlantic and Politico so I should probably just let those speak for themselves for now